Enlarge/ The Twitter timeline of US President Donald Trump as seen on June 29, 2017, in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Getty | Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto

It’s one thing for most of us to block Twitter users who annoy us, but it’s a violation of those users’ First Amendment rights for the president to do so, a federal appeals court confirmed.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday issued an opinion supporting an earlier federal court ruling that as long as Donald Trump is a public official, he cannot block people (which prevents them from reading his feed or responding to his comments) he disagrees with on Twitter.

The opinion (PDF) is narrow, specific, and unanimous, with all three judges concurring. “We do not consider or decide whether an elected official violates the Constitution by excluding persons from a wholly private social media account,” the judges write, “Nor do we consider whether private social media companies are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms.”

But, they continue, “The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees…. Once the President has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with.”

“The irony of all this,” the opinion concludes, “is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate. This debate encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of ideas and viewpoints and generates a level of passion and intensity the likes of which have rarely been seen. This debate, as uncomfortable and unpleasant as it frequently may be, is nonetheless a good thing. In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less.”

The group of Twitter users, along with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, filed the initial lawsuit almost exactly two years ago, in July 2017.

The suit claimed that, as Trump’s Twitter feed is a public forum in which the president posts official statements of policy, blocking the plaintiffs for making critical comments amounted to a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Federal Judge Naomi Buchwald agreed, issuing a ruling for the plaintiffs in 2018 that concluded the “interactive space for replies and retweets” connected to each Trump tweet qualified as a public forum for First Amendment considerations.

A judge in Virginia ruled in 2017 that, while local politicians could moderate comments to their social media pages, the pages themselves operated as “a forum for speech under the First Amendment,” and blocking users for sharing critical opinions was not permissible.

The governor of Maryland settled a similar lawsuit in 2018, which required him to adopt a new social media policy that permitted users to comment on “any past topic he has covered” and retain comments that were deleted by moderators for one year to give users time to appeal the removal.

“Based on the success of last year’s tour of Volkswagen Bratislava, Sewio is again holding its Summit close to its reference customer – enabling production and logistics managers, digital officers, IT managers and consultants worldwide to experience how to leverage Sewio RTLS indoor tracking for smart material handling,” notes Petr Passinger, CMO at Sewio Networks. “Anybody who is already using RTLS or plans to use it in the future is welcome to attend the conference. This two-day event will provide both ROI-driven case studies and visionary talks given by the leaders of industry.“

Topics include Smart Factory, digitization of material flow, trends in Industry 4.0. The program will also include case studies, presented by Sewio partners and clients, covering real-life examples of forklift and AGV tracking, material and asset flow tracking and the digitalization of Kanban.

Wednesday opens with a keynote provided by Tobias Hofmann from SICK and Thursday starts with a keynote by representatives of ICZ (a Sewio partner) and the Budweiser Budvar brewery. Along with other speakers, Mr. Takao Tomita, Senior Vice President of Toyota Tsusho will speak about RTLS application to AGV Management and Mr. Michal Stachnik, General Manager at Cisco about production networks and its security.

The Sewio Summit 2019’s venue is at Clarion Congress Hotel in České Budějovice in Prague, the center of South Bohemia and possibly the world capital of lager.

For more information on the Sewio Summit conference and to register for your ticket (€149), please visit https://summit.sewio.net

Sewio Networks is a manufacturer of a real-time location system (RTLS) for indoor tracking that drives business results for companies in the intralogistics, retail, sport, entertainment and livestock industries. The Sewio system is built on ultra-wideband technology (UWB) and delivered with RTLS Studio, remote management and visualization software.

It gives partners and customers a precise, easy-to-integrate, reliable and fully scalable IoT solution for indoor tracking that allows process visibility, boosts production efficiency, simplifies the inventory process and increases safety. Founded in 2014, Sewio is headquartered in the Czech Republic with offices in Germany and France. Sewio has 70+ system integration partners and powers customers in 37 countries. Customers include: Volkswagen, Budvar, Pirelli, Matador, TPCA, Škoda.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, summer’s in full swing. If you’re anything like me, the warm temperature and glorious sunlight has erased the appeal of anything that doesn’t involve drinking outdoors and listening to OutKast’s catalog on repeat.

As tempting as it is to grab an overpriced sixer and throw on Stankonia, you’ve still got leads to generate and sales to make. Even if you’ve created watertight keyword lists and razor-sharp lookalike audiences, something still stands between your prospects and your business: ad copy.

At the end of the day, you need people to click on your ads—awareness campaigns on YouTube and the GDN notwithstanding. To be more precise, you need the right people to click on your ads. In order to make that happen, you need to elevate your copywriting game.

Next Wednesday, July 17, we’ll be diving deep into the strategies you can use to write your best Google and Facebook ads yet. Make sure to register for the live webinar to get our top eight copywriting tips and all the insights we have to offer! In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek: four tips to help you start writing better Google and Facebook ad copy today.

2 tips to write your best Google ads ever

Writing ad copy for Facebook isn’t quite the same as writing ad copy for Google—different platforms favor different techniques. For the webinar, we’ll be sharing four tips for writing better ads on each platform. For now, here are two of our best tips for writing irresistible Google ads.

1. Align your messaging with the customer journey

Google strives to serve users the most relevant search results possible. When judging the relevance of the various ads competing in a given auction, Google relies on keywords. In a nutshell, keywords help Google determine which ads are relevant to a particular query. That’s why it’s considered best practice to target specific keywords with your ad copy.

Now—I’m not about to argue that you shouldn’t include target keywords in your ad copy. However, I am of the opinion that keywords shouldn’t be your main focus when writing ads. Instead, you should be focused on meeting the unique needs of whoever’s searching for something related to your business—and that means aligning your messaging with the various stages of the customer journey.

Here’s what I mean by that. Across the pool of search queries triggering your ads, the users making those searches are at different stages in the customer journey—the path people take from the realization of a problem to the purchase of a solution. Whereas someone at the very beginning of their customer journey—known as the awareness stage—is mostly interested in learning more about the options they can choose from, someone nearing the end of their customer journey—known as the conversion stage—is far more likely to make a purchase.

TripAdvisor’s ad is perfect for someone at the beginning of their customer journey.

When evaluating the search results and deciding which one to click, users are guided by whatever it is they need to accomplish at that moment in time. Therefore, enticing users to click on your ads requires writing ads that help them do what they need to do. Often, this commitment to aligning your copy with the stages of the customer journey means being a bit more relaxed about keyword targeting. And that’s okay.

Think of it this way: Nobody clicks on an ad because they’re impressed by its keyword density. Instead, they click on an ad because it makes a compelling offer.

No time to read the rest of this post? Sign up for next week’s webinar here and you’ll get everything you need to know—no reading required!

2. Tell people why they shouldn’t click on your ad

Wait—what? Aren’t we here to talk about writing ads that entice people to click? Why the heck would I tell people to not click on my ads?

Because sometimes your ads will be triggered by people who are more likely to forge a friendship between Matt Barnes and Derek Fisher than become your customer. It seems absurdly obvious, but it warrants boldface text: You don’t want users to click on your ads unless there’s a chance they’ll eventually become your customers. Otherwise, you’re spending money on clicks that offer nothing in return. That’s … less than ideal.

In a perfect world, there’d be a surefire way to completely eliminate any chance of attracting unqualified clicks. Although, sadly, that’s not the case, there are copywriting strategies you can use to reduce the risk of those budget-draining clicks taking place. The most straightforward way to do this is using your copy to tell users who your product or service is for—thus communicating who it’s not for at the same time.

If you’re not a student, you wouldn’t click this ad, would you?

For example, let’s say your company sells specialty skin care products for women. In order to drive high-funnel website traffic and fill your remarketing pool, you’re bidding on the modified broad match keyword+skin +care +products. There’s a problem, of course: The ads you’ve tied to this keyword can easily be triggered by male users. Because your products are exclusively for women, you don’t want men clicking on your ads. So what do you do? Simple—you include the phrase “for women” in your ads’ headlines and descriptions. Although this tactic won’t eliminate all clicks from male users, it will certainly reduce them.

2 tips to write your best Facebook ads ever

Although Google has certainly stepped up their audience targeting game over the past few years, Facebook is still the platform to use when setting your sights on specific groups of people. As powerful as that is, getting your messaging in front of the right prospects is only half the battle; the messaging itself is still extremely important. Here are two of our best tips for writing the best Facebook ads you possibly can.

1. Test, test, test

Being a digital marketer—or a business owner who moonlights as a digital marketer—means making assumptions. When we advertise in the Google search results, we assume that the keywords we’re targeting reflect the level of intent we’re looking for. When we create a Facebook custom audience, we assume that the users we’re going after will be interested in our offer. And when we write ad copy, we assume that it will resonate with our prospects.

We hate to break it to you, but that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes, the Facebook ad copy you’ve agonized over will miss the mark—as indicated by a low click-through rate (failure to entice the right users) or a low conversion rate (failure to ward off the wrong users).

Although you can’t get around making assumptions, you can turn those assumptions into valuable learning experiences. That’s why it’s crucial to run A/B tests.

An A/B test, quite simply, is an exercise that compares the performance of two ads. Although you can use this strategy to optimize a range of Facebook advertising assets—your target audience, your call to action, etc.—A/B testing works especially well when refining your ad copy. Ultimately, you want to answer a single question: Does a particular style of messaging resonate with our audience significantly better than another style of messaging?

Changing “viral growth” to “10X more traffic” could move the needle. Only one way to find out.

Here’s a simple example. You’re just getting started with Facebook advertising and you want to find out which tone—casual or professional—your target audience prefers. For one week, you could target that audience with a casual-sounding ad. The next week, you could target the same users with a professional-sounding ad. If one version performs significantly better than the other, you’ve got yourself an actionable copywriting insight!

If you want more copywriting insights, make sure you save your seat for the webinar on July 17. This isn’t one you’ll want to miss!

2. Do your best to blend in

Unfortunately, we’re going to be the bearers of bad news once again: Generally speaking, people don’t like being advertised to—especially when they’re just trying to post some photos or check in on their friends’ status updates. In fact, Facebook has taken this into account with their ad auction algorithm. The less engagement Facebook expects your ad to get—that is, the less Facebook expects your target audience to like your ad—the worse you’ll perform.

Does this mean you should give up altogether? Of course not—Facebook advertising works really well. What it does mean is that you need to write ads that create a good experience for the users you’re targeting—and that means blending in with your surroundings.

Believe it or not, writing Facebook ads that don’t disrupt the user experience is simpler than it sounds. All you have to do is think carefully about what your target audience wants to see. Remember what we said earlier about writing Google Ads copy that matches your prospects’ stages in the customer journey? You can use that same basic philosophy to create effective, relevant Facebook ads that blend seamlessly into your prospects’ News Feeds.

Not to get too meta on you guys, but … this is a great ad.

Let’s use another example. You’ve been advertising on Facebook for a little while now and you’re eager to introduce your business to a new crop of users. So you create a lookalike audience based on the people who’ve clicked on your ads in the past. Taking into account that this is the first time these users will be engaging with your business, asking them to sign up for a free trial of your product is a surefire way to not blend in; that ad would stick out like a sore thumb. Alternatively, asking them to check out a video or a blog post is totally appropriate—so appropriate that some users may initially realize that it’s an ad! That’s a winner.

Don’t forget to register!

As much as we believe in these four tips we’ve shared with you today, we’ve got so much more to say about writing effective ads on Google and Facebook. Tune into the webinar next Wednesday and you’ll get twice as many copywriting insights—on the house! If that sounds good to you, you can register for the webinar here.

Studio MDHR announced today that an animated show based on its game Cuphead is coming to Netflix

Cuphead released for Xbox One and PC in 2017, and a Switch port came out earlier this year. The run-and-gun game features hand-drawn animation inspired by the classic 1930s cartoons. As of August 2018, it had sold over 3 million copies.

The Cuphead Show will give the franchise an opportunity to branch out into a different kind of media. Since the game became a hit thanks in part to its hand-drawn art, an animated show seems like a logical transition.

Coming to you in full color and cine-sound, it’s…The Cuphead Show! Witness the wondrous Inkwell Isles as you’ve never seen them before in an original series inspired by classic animation styles of the 1930s. Now in production by the talented team at @Netflix Animation! pic.twitter.com/4xA59eVLra

This series will come to life via Netflix’s internal animation studio, Netflix Animation. The new division includes established animation talent like Glen Keane, who worked at Disney on hits like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, and Elizabeth Ito, who worked on hit shows like Adventure Time and Phineas and Ferb.

Amazon certainly gets a ton of mindshare these days as the end-all, be-all retail solution for shoppers. Granted, it dominates the utilitarian e-commerce game and it’s only getting better at it. Amazon Prime Day is the largest single shopping day globally with sales coming from 17 countries and sales hitting $4.19 billion. But what if I told you that Amazon only represents 5% of all retail sales, according to a recent article published by TechCrunch. Despite the perpetual false swirl of rumors clamoring about the demise of brick-and-mortar retail, physical stores today can complement Amazon’s offering rather than compete against it.

Case in point: Amazon’s second brick-and-mortar concept, Amazon 4-Star, debuted in 2018, featuring the most popular, highest rated and trending products based on each store’s geographic location. While it’s undoubtedly a great idea, perhaps there’s a lesson in solid execution to be had from those that have long-since played in the space – that group of experienced retail veterans that continue to re-think in-store engagement for the ultimate goal of creating a holistic customer experience.

Let’s call it a privileged position – this opportunity for retailers to double down on experiential advertising that boosts customers’ perceptions of their own unique shopping experiences, through methods that range from exceptional customer service and old-school atmospherics to interactive technology.

But with that, retailers and brands should also proceed with caution, for there is potential for offering too much of a good thing. Take tech-dominated store experiences, for example, that eliminate the need for human interaction and often fall flat for that very reason. In other words, retailers today must strike a fine balance to create the ideal blend of value-added mobile or tech experiences with personal connection and exceptional customer service, while leveraging the type of innovation that is revitalizing brick-and-mortar stores in the process.

Nike makes a bold ‘brick-and-mobile’ play

Finding that balance has led some major global brands more directly into the “brick-and-mobile” retail game, including Nike, which opened two tech-infused stores this year that enable shoppers to trigger in-store experiences with their smartphones. The flagship store in New York City, Nike House of Innovation 000, empowers guests to reserve shoe sizes via their phone and pick up selected styles in a designated locker they can then unlock with their phone. Next, selected items can be scanned and instantly paid for with a customer’s Nike Plus account.

Nike’s new approach blends customers’ desire to research additional information about products they are interested in with the satisfaction of being able to try on and take home purchases in minutes. This is especially strategic given that nearly three out of four (71 percent) of shoppers now access their phone while in stores to read product reviews, compare prices, check out, pay or look for gift inspiration ahead of the holidays, according to the latest Shopper-First Retailing Report. That number is up 15 percent from 2017.

Direct-to-consumer brands go from clicks to bricks

While in-store mobile shopping and research are increasingly popular among consumers, so are direct-to-consumer brands. A recent YouGov survey found 40 percent of U.S. consumers expect to spend more than 40 percent of their spending on direct-to-consumer brands over the next five years.

In fact, the No. 1 retail trend, according to eMarketer’s recent Future of Retail 2019 report, is that more DTC brands will go from clicks to bricks, meaning that digitally native brands are now landing and expanding their brick-and-mortar footprints at a furious pace, with 850 stores expected to open over the next five years, according to commercial real estate firm JLL.

As the report astutely points out, “Emotive experiences are difficult, if not impossible, to recreate through digital storefronts alone. But digital technology incorporated into physical store environments can produce engaging retail experiences.”

Creating an omnichannel strategy for the new retail reality

Again, the danger is for retail stores to become overly tech-ridden and then lose their human touch.

On the flip side, the opportunity is for retailers to carve out a slice of this new, digitalized shopping reality that blurs sales channels, turning the retail landscape into an ever-evolving, omnichannel commerce experience.

According to the Global Omnichannel Commerce Trends 2018 report, the U.S., U.K. and Australia are the global leaders of the omnichannel trend, although emerging markets led by China are catching up quickly and expect to see their share of digitally influenced retail sales expand by more than 10 percent through 2022.

Given the global convergence of online and brick-and-mortar retail, as well as the integration of innovative, in-store technologies that create truly engaging and interactive experiences, brands that rely on just a single channel to reach consumers, or that fail to develop a strategic, omnichannel media strategy will ultimately miss out.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Garrett Albanese is a brand strategist and marketing guru who helps Triad share its message and vision with brands and retailers. The former VP of Brand Strategy & Innovation for POPSUGAR traded snowstorms for lightning storms when he made the move from Long Island to Tampa. He didn’t waste any time diving headfirst into Triad’s rebrand – a massive undertaking that was fueled by in-depth research, competitive analysis, late-night creative sessions and lots of cold brew coffee. When he’s not obsessing over the perfect shade of “Triad Purple” or crafting a killer brand positioning strategy, you’ll find him treasure hunting for new home décor and exploring his sunny new digs.

In most circles, the word “bias” has obviously negative connotations. Regarding the media, it means news is slanted one way or another. In science, it means preconceived notions led to inaccurate conclusions. When it comes to artificial intelligence, the bias of those who program the software — and the data from which it learns — can lead to unsatisfactory results.

Any bias is a deviation from reality when collecting, analyzing, or interpreting data. Intentional or not, most people are somewhat biased in how they view the world, which affects how they interpret data. As technology plays more crucial roles in everything from employment to criminal justice, a biased AI system can have a significant impact.

Before humans can trust machines to learn and interpret the world around them, we must eliminate bias in the data that AI systems learn from. Here’s how you can avoid such bias when implementing your own AI solution.

1. Start with a highly diversified team.

Any AI system’s deep learning model will be limited by the collective experience of the team behind it. If that team is siloed, the system will make judgments and predictions based on a highly inaccurate model. For Adam Kalai, co-author of the paper “Man is to computer programmer as woman is to homemaker? Debiasing word embeddings,” eliminating bias in AI is like raising a baby. For better or worse, the baby — or AI system — will think how you teach it to think. It also takes a village. So put together a highly diverse team to head up your AI effort. You’ll be more likely to identify nuanced biases earlier and more precisely.

To reduce hiring bias when assembling your team, examine the language of your job ads and remove biased wording. The word “ninja,” for example, may seem to make your job ad more compelling. However, it could deter women from applying becausesociety views the word as masculine. Another tactic is to reduce the number of job requirements, listing them as preferred qualifications. That will likewise encourage more female candidates to apply — not because they don’t have such credentials, but because they tend not to apply unless they have all of them. Finally, create standard interview questions and a post-interview debriefing process to ensure all interviewers at your company are working within the same framework when assessing job candidates.

2. Have your diverse team teach your chatbots.

Like humans, when bots have more data and experiences to draw from, they make smarter choices. “Collect enough data for your chatbot to make good decisions. Automated agents should constantly learn and adapt, but they can only do that if they’re being fed the right data,”says Fang Cheng, CEO and co-founder of Linc Global. Chatbots learn by studying previous conversations, so your team should be feeding your bot data that teaches it to respond in the way you want it to. For instance, Swedish bank SEBhas even taught its virtual assistant Aida to detect a frustrated tone in a caller’s voice, at which point the bot knows to pass the caller along to a human representative.

To accomplish something similar without falling prey to bias, you may need to create data sets that provide your bot with examples from multiple demographics. Put a process in place to detect issues. Whether you use an automated platform or manually review customer conversations, search for patterns in customer chats. Do customers opt for a human representative or appear more frustrated when calling about a specific issue? Do certain customer personas feel thwarted more often? Your chatbots might be mishandling or misunderstanding a certain type of customer concern — or concerns from a certain type of customer. Once you identify a common thread in frustrated customer inquiries, you can feed your AI the information it needs to correct course.

3. Show the world how your AI thinks.

Transparency is perhaps just as important as diversity when it comes to building an AI system that people can trust. There are currently no laws regarding the rights of consumers who are subject to an AI algorithm’s decision-making. The least companies can do is be completely transparent with consumers about why decisions were made. Despite common industry fears, that doesn’t mean disclosing the code behind your AI.

Simply provide the criteria that the system used to reach its decisions. For instance, if the system denies a credit application, have it explain which factors went into that denial and what the consumer can do to improve his or her chances of qualifying the next time. IBM has launched a software service that looks for bias in AI systems and determines why automated decisions were made. Tools like this can aid in your transparency efforts.

The potential for bias to taint a company’s AI program is a real concern. Fortunately, there are ways to expand the diversity of your AI’s source data and weed out significant biases. By eliminating bias, you’ll help your company — and society — truly realize the benefits AI has to offer.

The Internet of Things is advancing at a breakneck pace, with new innovations in almost every industry.

This is happening on two fronts: the transformation of “dumb” objects into data-driven smart machines, and the creation of wearable devices to monitor and manage the biological state of humans and animals.

These two areas are opening up major opportunities in efficiency and effectiveness. Utilizing mechanical devices to collect data and execute optimal solutions automatically (perhaps with an AI-human interface) unlocks substantial business value.

But, this new IoT device-plus-data paradigm creates a major commercial challenge: how do you price IoT offerings when they’re so transformational?

Data and Devices

Manufacturers who sell data-generating products such as smart tractors, sensors, windmills, machinery, software, location devices, etc. capture, package and resell data their products generate. The buyers may be the users of the product (selling the user’s data back to them), for example, a smart tractor or medical device. Or, the buyers may be third parties who use the data for another purpose.

Sensors, such as those developed in wearable devices for dairy cows, are a great example of a data-generating product. These collars, ear tags and implants monitor a cow’s movements and other biological signs continuously.

The data from each cow is used to benchmark its own behavior day-to-day and the herd as a whole. A cow’s movement can predict illness significantly before a farmer would visually notice the illness. Early detection means less-costly treatments and less use of antibiotics. The data can also be used to predict when a cow is going into heat, so she can be bred and put into milk production (this is highly valuable as missing this requires the dairy farmer to wait another month).

The traditional methods for detecting a cow’s health and reproduction were roughly 50 percent accurate and required significant daily human monitoring of the herd. With the new wearable technologies, these predictions can now be more than 80 percent accurate.

Data and Machines

Businesses create a vast amount of data in their day-to-day operations. Many firms are now packaging specific data they create in the course of their business and selling it to external buyers.

Agriculture is a great example. John Deere Precision Ag Technology and Case New Holland Advanced Farming Systems have developed and integrated IoT technologies into their tractors. These tractors are outfitted with a variety of sensors and data capture capabilities, interactive displays and software applications. These allow highly precise farming, resulting in improved crop yields and more successful farms.

Using GPS and visual tracking, the tractor knows exactly where it is and where it’s been year after year. Farmers can accurately map out where to plant seed, apply fertilizer and spray pesticide. The machine will execute and monitor its performance against optimal targets. Auto-guidance systems reduce row skips and overlaps, cut fuel and labor consumption and apply seed more regularly. Fertilizer use is lowered with sophisticated weed detection, allowing pinpoint spraying only where it’s needed. The vast amount of data generated can then be used to generate recommendations that improve planting, nurturing and harvesting operations.

Consumers accustomed to purchasing devices as standalone products, like tractors, may not understand how to value an ongoing subscription. Or they may expect the device for free — essentially “bundled” with the subscription. Consumers tend to prefer the simplicity of all-in pricing.

The Challenge of Pricing IoT Offerings

Enabling machines with smart IoT technology transforms the value offering. Instead of a pure product, you are now offering a combination of a product plus an ongoing subscription service.

This extends the length of the relationship with the buyer (generally for the better). However, it changes the way the buyer perceives value, and it can make commercial transactions more complex. In some cases, such as wearable devices for cows, the offering may be entirely new to the industry, requiring a significant mindset shift. These all create pricing challenges.

When somebody buys a tractor or a collar, it’s typically a “feature buy” — the customer purchases the features they’re looking for at an understandable price point. Sometimes the product comes with an additional warranty or recurring maintenance plan.

In comparison, IoT-enabled products include technology and service components that add ongoing value. The buyer may get greater efficiency, higher revenue, reduced costs, increased safety, etc.

These new benefits must be priced in relation to the value that the customer will derive from them. Getting to this information requires a higher level of collaboration with the customer to access the necessary data for value discovery.

There can be a structural business challenge to moving from pure product-based pricing to product-plus-service pricing. The financial and accounting standards for most heavy industries are based on financing products and asset depreciation over time. Adding subscription or service components to an equipment purchase can complicate the financing and have knock-on effects on pricing.

The Key to Pricing IoT Offers: Value Transition

One of the key concepts we focus on at Pricing Solutions is Value Transition. This means pricing a product, service or combination based on the level of utility it provides for a particular customer.

Pricing correctly involves assessing the three stages of utility from the buyer’s point of view. This is what we call Value Transition:

Monitoring: Devices can collect and monitor data.

Prediction: A smart algorithm can predict what might happen.

Prescription: A smarter algorithm can accurately prescribe what you should do to optimize your desired outcome.

The more of these elements your offer contains, the higher it should be priced.

A device that simply monitors for certain conditions would generally have less value than one which can accurately instruct you on which action is best to take.

Each element has a value associated with it. The cumulative effect of IoT offerings is typically greater than the sum of their parts. Pricing your IoT offer effectively means digging deep into the value it creates for your intended customers. You should segment your target market and assign a value to each step for each niche. This will effectively create a value map and identify any outliers that need a special pricing structure.

Pricing an IoT offering to drive the highest value to your company can be a complex challenge. This can be the difference between high ROI or a failed experiment in pushing new technology into an unreceptive market.

Spotify Lite is available for Android phones in Asia, Canada, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.

Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Spotify launched a Lite version of its music streaming app so you don’t have to worry about hitting data limits as you stream. The 10 MB app is designed for older devices and operating systems, and hit 36 countries.

People with free and Premium Spotify accounts can download the app on any Android device that runs the main app’s version 4.3 or higher, and you can set your own data limit — you’ll get a notification when you hit it. You can also easily clear your cache if your phone runs low on storage.

“Spotify Lite was built from the ground up based on user feedback from around the world, allowing millions more to enjoy the world’s best music experience — especially in areas with limited bandwidth and phone storage,” Kalle Persson, Spotify’s senior product manager, said in a release.

Just after Memorial Day this year, I began talking regularly with the pilot of the first spacecraft to land on the Moon. We had spoken before, but this was different—it seemed urgent. Every week or two, Buzz Aldrin would call to discuss his frustration with the state of NASA and his concerns about the looming 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing without a lack of discernible progress to get back.

Even at 89, Aldrin remains remarkably engaged in the aerospace community, often showing up to meetings and conferences unannounced. Aldrin asks questions. He talks to the principals. In the last two years, the aerospace legend has been to the White House for major space announcements by President Trump, served as an adviser to the National Space Council, and supported the White House goal of returning to the Moon by 2024.

But what NASA has been doing to get back there, for the better part of two decades, just hasn’t been working. President Bush directed NASA back to the Moon more than 15 years ago, and in one form or another, NASA has been spending billions of dollars each year to build a big, heavy spacecraft and a bigger, much heavier rocket as the foundation for such a return. Along the way, NASA has enriched a half-dozen large aerospace contractors and kept Congress happy. But the space agency still can’t even launch its own astronauts into low-Earth orbit, let alone deep space or the Moon.

“I’ve been going over this in my mind,” Aldrin told Ars “We’ve been fumbling around for a long, long time. There has to be a better way of doing things. And I think I’ve found it.”

He realizes that, with a big Apollo anniversary on July 20, this may be one of his last chances to change things. You only hit a Golden Anniversary once, and then it’s gone. And soon, pretty quickly, so are you. So Buzz Aldrin would like to grab the spotlight at this moment, and in the process he hopes to finally get NASA moving forward. He wants NASA to stop trying to repeat the Apollo program of yesteryear and embrace the future of spaceflight.

So as we talked in late May and June, I simply took notes. Aldrin was not speaking to me, after all, he was trying to speak to the world.

Only a few left

Only a dozen humans have ever stepped out of a spacecraft and onto the surface of another world, and two-thirds of them are gone now. Aldrin’s partner on Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, died in 2012. Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Jim Irwin, John Young, and Gene Cernan have all gone away, too. Most died incredulous—how, they wondered, had the powerful legacy they left behind dissipated like a rocket’s contrail, scattered in the wind?

Of those still left to us, Aldrin is the oldest. Dave Scott, Charlie Duke, and Harrison Schmitt are all in their mid-80s. There is no guarantee any of them will be alive for the 60th anniversary of Apollo 11.

This is the official NASA portrait of astronaut Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin, who joined NASA in 1963. Prior to this, Aldrin flew 66 combat missions in F-86s while on duty in Korea.

NASA

On November 11, 1966, Aldrin launched into space aboard the Gemini 12 spacecraft on a four-day flight, which brought the Gemini program to a successful close. Command pilot James A. Lovell is followed by Aldrin. The signs on their backs note this mission is the final flight of the Gemini Program.

NASA

Aldrin performing a spacewalk during the Gemini 12 mission.

NASA

Aldrin arrives at the Flight Crew Training building at the NASA Kennedy Space Center a few days prior to launch of Apollo 11.

President Barack Obama poses with Apollo 11 astronauts, from left, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong, Monday, July 20, 2009, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

NASA

In late 2009, at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Fla., Aldrin rides in a 1969 Camaro convertible to participate in a ticker-tape parade to welcome his namesake, toy space ranger Buzz Lightyear, home from space.

Aldrin and George Clooney on stage at the OMEGA ‘Lost In Space’ dinner to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the OMEGA Speedmaster, which has been worn by every piloted NASA mission since 1965, at Tate Modern on April 26, 2017 in London, England.

Mike Marsland/Getty Images for OMEGA

US President Donald Trump gives the pen to Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin after signing an Executive Order to reestablish the National Space Council in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on June 30, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images

To its credit, the Trump administration has injected NASA with a sense of urgency by setting the 2024 landing goal. In response to this, NASA has proposed the Artemis program, a campaign of 37 launches that culminates with the beginnings of a lunar base in a decade. While there are serious questions about the political saliency of this plan, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin is more concerned about the technical problems.

NASA has spent $50 billion building the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System rocket, and related exploration vehicles over the past 15 years. Orion is a capable deep space capsule, but it is also massive, weighing 26 tons along with its service module and large heat shield. For every Artemis mission, NASA proposes to launch this mass all the way to the Moon and back. At least Orion is reusable; by contrast the large, expendable SLS rocket will cost more than $1.5 billion per flight and require a standing army of contractors just to keep supply lines open for, at most, a single mission per year.

For all of the time and money invested in SLS and Orion, these vehicles lack the energy to fly a mission into low lunar orbit and back. Indeed, the engine powering Orion’s service module has less than one-third of the thrust of the Apollo propulsion system that flew Aldrin to the Moon in 1969. This is a major reason NASA intends to build a Lunar Gateway—a small space station—in a distant orbit around the Moon. From there, the Gateway will come no closer than 1,000km to the lunar surface and spend most of its seven-day orbit much farther away.

“One thing that surprises me is the lack of performance,” Aldrin said, discussing these vehicles NASA has spent so long developing. “It forces NASA into this weird orbit. And how long is SLS going to last until Blue Origin or SpaceX replaces it? Not long. How long is that heavy Orion spacecraft, with an under-powered European service module, going to hang around in the inventory? Not long.”

YouTube has gone beyond being a simple video sharing site to become a phenomenon. So much so there are people who now watch YouTube instead of traditional TV.

This means that whether you dream of being a YouTube star or simply want to share videos with your friends, creating videos for YouTube can be a rewarding process.

However, in order to create and edit YouTube videos, you’ll need the right tools. And with that in mind here are the best video editing apps for YouTube.

Adobe Premiere is as close to a household name as you get when it comes to video editors. It’s incredibly powerful, but it’s so feature-packed that it may be overkill for some YouTube creators. If you’re looking for a video editor for YouTube, the new Premiere Rush may be a better option.

As the name suggests, Adobe Premiere Rush is meant to help you get videos put together faster. It has motion graphics templates built-in, so there’s no reason to integrate After Effects into your workflow. This is just one of several features that helps you get videos out more quickly and easily.

Premiere Rush is also relatively affordable at $9.99/month. If you want to have Premiere Pro available as well, you can bundle both for $20.99/month.

Adobe Premiere Rush is available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

If you’re just starting off and you’re not familiar with all the editing apps for YouTube, you may not want to spend any money. Simple videos aren’t that tricky to put together, so you may not need fancy software. If you use a Mac and are looking for a simple, cheap option, look no further than iMovie, which comes free with your Mac.

You’re not going to edit a feature film with iMovie, but it’s more than enough for simple editing tasks. It offers more than YouTube’s built-in editor, which could be all you need.

The above option isn’t going to do you any good if you’re looking for YouTube editing software for Windows. Windows Movie Maker used to be an option, but you won’t find it on Windows 10. The good news is that Movie Maker Pro offers many of the same features.

You’ll find Movie Maker Pro in the Microsoft Store, but it’s not a Microsoft app. It’s a free download but does offer an optional upgrade. Looking at the user reviews, many people are more than happy enough with the free version. There are better options out there, but for a YouTube editor that’s free on Windows, this is a good place to start.

At first, Blender might seem a strange option to include here. After all, it’s mainly known as 3D rendering software. Interestingly enough, Blender also includes a full-featured video editor. This is more than enough to make it one of the best video editors for YouTube, especially if you’re interested in 3D graphics.

Blender can handle simple video editing functions like cutting and splicing, but also more advanced tasks like masking. You get up to 32 tracks (known as slots here) for video, audio, images, effects, and more. The app is also completely free and open source, and it’s available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

When it was first released, longtime Final Cut Pro fans hated Final Cut Pro X. While some still deride it as “iMovie Pro,” it’s actually very handy if you’re looking for YouTube video editing software that’s a little more advanced than iMovie. You won’t feel completely alienated, but Final Cut Pro X is much more powerful.

As Mac-only software, Final Cut Pro X takes advantage of features like the MacBook Pro Touch Bar and the Metal graphics API for improved performance. The app isn’t exactly cheap at $299, but that’s not much more than you’d pay for a year of Premiere Rush and Premiere Pro CC. In this case, you’re actually buying the app, so you don’t have to worry about monthly billing.

While it may not hold up to offerings from Adobe and similar brands, PowerDirector more than matches the default YouTube editing software. It’s also a familiar interface that should appeal not just to PowerDirector fans, but anyone who has used a video editor before.

It may have roots as color grading software for Hollywood movies, but DaVinci Resolve is also one of the best video editors for YouTube. You’ll find an overwhelming amount of features, but fortunately, you don’t have to use them all. All you need to know is that it can edit anything you throw at it, including 4K footage.

If you decide that you want to upgrade, the full version of DaVinci Resolve costs $299, but you can do plenty with the free version. It’s available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, so it is a great option no matter which platform you’re on.

Another pro editor with a free version available, Hitfilm Express is one of the best video editing apps for YouTube you’ll find. Like DaVinci Resolve, it lets you do nearly any editing task you can think of, including editing 4K footage. Hitfilm Express has a friendlier interface, so if you’re new to video editing this may be a better choice.

Hitfilm Express also has a full version available for $299 but offers an in-between option as well. You can purchase optional add-ons for the free version, adding bits and pieces of functionality for around $10 to $20 apiece. Hitfilm Express is available for Windows and macOS.

Like Blender, Shotcut is both free and open source. Because of this, you can’t really expect the same level of interface polish you’d find in a paid app. That doesn’t mean that this app isn’t plenty powerful.

Where Shotcut stands out among the crowd of free editing software for YouTube is the tutorials on offer. When it comes to open source software, this isn’t always something you can count on. If you’re looking for a simple, free option on Linux, this is absolutely worth trying. You might like it on Windows or macOS as well, but the competition is much stiffer on those platforms.

Finding the Best Video Editing Apps for YouTube

Before you decide on one of these video editing apps for YouTube, it makes sense to think about your ambitions. If you just want to share a gameplay clip of yourself singing a song, you don’t need a powerful editor. On the other hand, if you’re looking to replace every person in a movie with Nicolas Cage, you’ll need something more capable.